


And Now I See, I See It For The First Time (There Is No Crime In Being Kind)

by Lilsciencequeen



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Jemma Simmons, Blood, F/M, His father is an asshole, Hydra (Marvel), Injury, Past Child Abuse, post 4x19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 11:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10763286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilsciencequeen/pseuds/Lilsciencequeen
Summary: “Alistair,” she greeted, though there was nothing friendly about it, the venom in her tone evident. “I would say it’s nice to meet you, but that would be a lie. Now tell me, is your son here? I would love to talk to him.”





	And Now I See, I See It For The First Time (There Is No Crime In Being Kind)

**Author's Note:**

> References to Fitz's childhood and how his father was emotionally abusive to him are present in this fic.

“You should be dead,” he called out as the guard pulled her into the study, her arms held behind her back. He set the newspaper down that he had been reading. “I should know, I was the one to put the bullets in you after all.”

“Alistair,” she greeted, though there was nothing friendly about it, the venom in her tone evident. “I would say it’s nice to meet you, but that would be a lie. Now tell me, is your son here? I would love to talk to him.”

Alistair laughed. “You’d think I’d tell you?”

Jemma shrugged. “I thought you’d say that. But if you knew your son, if you really _knew_ your son, then you’d know about me.”

“You think you know my son? _You_? Of all people?”

Anger flashed across her face. “You think you know Fitz?” She gave a grunt of pain as the guard pulled her arm further behind her back. “You don’t know him. You left him, you walked out on him, and that was the best thing that you ever did for him!”

Alistair rose and stood in front of her. “Leave us,” he said to the guard. The man nodded and left the two of them alone in the room. Alistair waited until it was just the two of them before speaking again. “Ophelia warned me about you. About what you want to do with my son.”

Jemma snorted. “What? Bring him home? Away from this hell? Away from _you_?

This angered him, and he raised his hand, bringing it and slapping it across her face. It left an angry red mark on her cheek. It didn’t seem to faze her for she did nothing, and just started at him in return, her steely gaze determined. “You don’t scare me,” she whispered. “You don’t scare me.”

He leaned in close to her. “You have no right to be here.”

“Neither do you,” she spat back. “You have no right. You walked out on him. You left him and doing that, it made Fitz into the most trusting and caring person there. A kind-hearted man who has done so much for me, for the world. You think he would cross the Universe for Ophelia?  He’s already done that for me. Twice.”

Alistair stared hard at her, it seemed that she wasn’t going to give up.

And he knew he couldn’t let her destroy the world that he had made. He couldn’t risk that. Not when he had sacrificed so much for it.

He turned, dropping his head. “I would want to say that I hate that it comes to this, but I’m not sorry.” He reaches for a box that sits on the bookcase in his study, and opened it, lifting a gun. He cocked it and then spun, pointing it at her. “You’re a threat to us, to this world, Miss Simmons. And we can’t have that.”

Jemam frowned. “It’s Doctor actually.” She reached for the vase that was one the end table, and threw it at him. She then turned and ran.

He ducked, missing the flying ceramic and a curse escaped him. But she hadn’t got far, and he was able to fire a single shot, which was all that was needed.

The bullet found its mark in Jemma, hitting her lower leg. She collapsed to the ground, crying out in pain. She tried to drag herself across the ground but found she couldn’t. She sat up, and faced him, holding the wound on the back of her leg.  Blood ran red over her fingers. “Are you going to kill me?” she asked, the bitterness heavy in her voice. She was panting, trying to hide the pain but it was failing. He could see it written on her face.

He looked down at her, gun still pointed at her chest. Then he dropped it, and knelt down in front of her. He took her face in one hand, and forced her to look at him. “There’s many at Hydra who wold like to talk to you _Doctor_ Simmons. And we can’t deny them this opportunity.”

He let her go and stood up. He titled his head, considering something, considering injuring her further but decided against it. There were those at Hydra who would be better suited for this situation. He reached for his phone and called the security team. It didn’t take long for them to appear, and grab Jemma, dragging her away.

***

“You found her?” he asked, looking at his father, who nodded in response. “You said she came to your house?”

“She did. Said she wanted to talk to you. That she was here to rescue you from this world.”

Leopold ran his hand through his hair. It was her, Jemma Simmons. The woman who had been there the day he had killed Agnes. The woman who had been there the day that the dreams had started. “Have the guards finished with her?”

His father passed him a tablet, and he zoomed in on the footage that was on it. The woman, Jemma Simmons, was sitting cuffed to the table. The right side of her face had swollen up, and there was blood in her hair line. Leopold shoved the table back to his father’s chest. “I’m going in.”

He made a move but his father blocked him. “That’s not important right now. What’s important is Project Looking Glass, helping Ophelia.” His tone was harsh. “Leopold.”

Leopold just shook his head, and tried to push past his father, but flinched once the man stopped him again. “The Project has been finished. And Ophelia is resting.” The look he gave his father seemed to burn into the older man’s very soul. “This won’t take much time. It won’t waste time. This woman is a threat. One I personally want to see an end to. I told you that, remember? And I intend on making sure it happens. I can’t have _anyone_ else fail me.” And with that, he pushed past his father, and down the corridor to where the holding cells where.

It didn’t take him long to reach them, and he slammed the door open. The sudden noise caused her to jump and look at him. The colour had drained from her face, the only thing there the vivid red of the blood. Her words had a slight lisp to them, from the swelling of her face. He could see her hiding the pain, but it wasn’t successful. It was so obviously written in her eyes.

“Fitz,” she whispered and he crossed his arms. “Please, you have to believe me…”

“Why do you call me that?” he asked, wanting to know why she went by that name rather than his name. “Fitz? Why do you call me that?”

“It’s what I’ve always called you,” she explained. When he didn’t ask anything else, she continued. “We met at sixteen, at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. You were so pasty and smart and so incredibly handsome. But you hated me, following you around. It wasn’t until Chem Lab that we got paired up. I tried to call you Leo, you asked me not to. I didn’t question it, and you didn’t say. Not for another couple of months anyway, when we were going to visit your mum. Your dad had used it against you, when he put you down. You didn’t like it, so we never called you it. Me, your mum, your friends.”

“My father?” he asked, wondering what she was talking about. Why she was talking about his father in that way. “What about my father?”

She nodded, then gave a soft grunt of pain, as if her neck hurt. “He was… he was a horrible person, always saying you weren’t good enough. Then he walked out on you, when you were still young. Your mother said it was the best day, when he went. That before that day, you were shy, reserved, _scared_ and once he left, you started to come out of your shell. It took time though, but you were going back to your old self. Her son, her Fitz.  Taking apart household appliances just to see how they worked. Never able to resist working out something.”

“My father did what he thought was best for me. He made me the man I am today.”

She shook her head. “Fitz, what he did... It was abusive. He claimed it was for the best to try and make it seem like it was. But it wasn’t. You shouldn’t talk to your child like that. To anyone like that but especially not your child. He was abusive”

He swallowed hard, the words that she had said racing around his mind. Because what she had said, there was something about it, something that made sense. Could she have been right? Could his father, the man who had claimed he was only doing the best for his son, been abusive? He closed his eyes and took a breath before taking the seat opposite her. “And this other world, the one where we’re together… What am I like?” He couldn’t help himself. The other world, despite what they had done to Ophelia, intrigued him. There had been something about it that he just couldn’t put his finger on… and now that she was here, maybe, just maybe, she would be able to help him figure it out. 

A soft smile tugged at the edges of her lips. “Honestly? The best man that I know. You’ve a kind heart and you’re the most trusting person that I know.”

There’s something about that, something about that that feels familiar. As if the words, or something similar had been said to him before. Maybe his mother had said them to him when he was young, as it hadn’t been his father. “And we’re together? Like Radcliffe said.”

“You want to marry me but you’ve not asked. Not yet anyway. You’re scared that I would say no.”

“And would you?”

She shook her head, her brown hair. some matted with blood, falling around her shoulders. “I would have said yes. I always would have said yes. And I promised I would tell you when I find you.”

He leaned back, running his hands down his face. “There’s something about you,” he whispered, his voice low and tight. “I…”

“Have you been having dreams? Flashes of another world? Periods of deja vu?”

He bit his lip, knowing that she’s right. Because ever since the first time that he saw her, ever since he heard her scream, there had been something, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“You have, haven’t you?”

He nodded. He had been; images of her falling a great height, images of an underwater hell, images of her covered in stone. He had always been hearing her laughter, as her lips danced across his own, her voice, soft and sweet and sometimes, and it always pained him, full of hurt. “And I want to know why. Why this is happening. How this is happening.”

She smiled at this, letting out a breath. “Of course you do, you could never let something that was on your mind go, could you?”

“But how?” he asked, and he could hear the pain in his voice. And for once, for some reason, he never thought of it as a weakness. Whether it was the woman doing it, or whether it was because his father wasn’t there, he didn’t know. But what he did know was how good, how liberating it was. “How are we going to do this?” he asked again.

The woman, Jemma, tried to reach for his hand but failed, the cuffs holding her wrists down to the table that separated them. So he took her hand in his own, and there was a fluttering sensation in his stomach. Without thinking, he ran his thumb across the back of her knuckles. Her fingers, unlike Ophelia’s, were ice cold but there was something comforting about them as well. Something familiar about them. Something that felt like home. She smiled this time, one that caused a happy kind of sadness in her eyes. “Like we do everything. Together.”

**Author's Note:**

> A massive shout out to [Stjarna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna) who helped me with the title, and why Fitz hates Leopold. Thanks so much! Title for this fic is from Fear and Loathing by Marina and the Diamonds. Thanks for checking out, and hope you guys enjoyed!


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